The Era of Generals

Chapter 402   More than a month

Time flies, and more than a month has passed in a blink of an eye.

During this period of time, Chen Ze and his troops did not leave Ketan City.

But despite this, he still kept the soldiers ready to march at any time. Even though more and more people were puzzled by this, he did not explain a word.

As for Zheng Yuanyun's side.

After breaking through the throat of Xilong City, as he expected, the large area of ​​Nantes Province behind him was completely flat, allowing him to freely hire him.

The few troops that were originally gathered in Xilong City were all gathered in Xilong City, but they were annihilated by him in one fell swoop. The five or six subsidiary cities in the rear were useless, and the one with the least number of troops. When Zheng Yuanyun's army arrived, it was found that there was only one Thousands of defenders trembled on the top of the city.

As a result, it is conceivable that Zheng Yuanyun took the city lightly without a single soldier.

This is different from what Ouyang Lixing told Ning Zhenggang to do before.

His original intention, or Chen Ze's original intention, was to delay Zheng Yuanyun for a while, so that he could rush to the scheduled location for deployment, and at the same time, he could wait for the Zhu Yan Empire's follow-up reinforcements to arrive.

In the very beginning, Ning Zhenggang did a good job, and even made Zheng Yuanyun helpless, and almost triggered a military attack.

But later, because of lack of troops, Ning Zhengang was attacked by Zheng Yuanyun through the other three defensive gates, and died in the end.

In terms of delaying time, he didn't delay much.

It is true that Ning Zhenggang cannot be blamed for this matter, he has indeed achieved his ultimate goal, but because of the huge disparity in military strength, he still failed to keep Xilong City after all.

It can be described as a crime other than war.

But it may not be that Ning Zhenggang has the desire to make contributions.

Xilong City was the main city of Nantes Province in the past, but now it is in decline, so that as the lord of Xilong City, his power is not as powerful as that of Zhang Chengwang, who has already died in battle. How can he be convinced?

Later, Zhang Chengwang died, and the position of the supreme commander of Nantes Province was vacated. Ning Zhenggang was of course a strong contender, but at this time, the Qingyang Empire was unwilling to let go, and led an army to attack Nantes in a large scale. Within the territory of the Special Administrative Region.

This is a crisis, but also an opportunity.

Ning Zhenggang knew very well that if he could stand up and turn the tide at such a time, so that the future enemies would be blocked outside Xilong City, then he would definitely be rewarded by the empire afterwards, be promoted to rank, and become the highest ranking official in Nantes province in one fell swoop. Coach, these are all things that are within reach.

Who else can compete with him?

It was based on this consideration that he ordered the surrounding cities to allocate all their troops to him as the only pawn with some weight in his hands.

But in fact, if he didn't have this idea, but just seriously carried out the procrastination task that Ouyang Lixing explained, things shouldn't be like this.

His 300,000 troops actually didn't play its due role.

Since they were all attacked through the other three city gates, and since they still had no substantive contact on the frontal battlefield, the battle ended.

So what's the difference whether he invested 300,000 troops or 100,000 troops on the frontal battlefield?

In the same amount of time, the amount of time he can procrastinate is still the same.

On the contrary, because he took away the troops from other cities, those cities had no ability to resist at all. Once Zheng Yuanyun's army arrived, they had no choice but to surrender or commit suicide.

As a result, the overall delay of Zheng Yuanyun in these cities in Nantes Province was greatly reduced, so that they were driven straight in by him.

On the other side, the 500,000 elite soldiers led by Ma Hui and Wu Peng, because they believed Zhang Hualin's words, did not pursue Zheng Yuanyun's footsteps, but stayed in Xilong City to carry out large-scale construction projects, preparing to replace the broken traffic. recover.

But this thing is not so easy to do.

At the beginning, Ning Zhenggang did a very thorough job in order to cut off Zheng Yuanyun's way forward.

Not only cut off the moat bridge, but also burned it directly. As for the ships on both sides of Xilong City, there was no one left.

Later, when the two armies fought, Zheng Yuanyun ordered his soldiers to collect countless stones to use as shells for catapults, and then cut down a lot of trees to block the river.

This was nothing at all, but when Ma Hui came to the other side of Xilong City and saw that the situation was exactly as Zhang Hualin said, he began to start construction work, so a problem arose.

It's hard for a clever woman to cook without rice.

Within a few miles, he couldn't find suitable materials for construction.

The vicinity of Xilong City is bare, almost all the stones and wood have been consumed.

If he wanted to obtain materials, there was a nearby way, and that was to send someone to explore in the river.

A large number of stones and wood have been used to fill the river, and there is really only one way to get them out.

Therefore, what Ma Hui's half a million elite soldiers do every day is to touch stones and carry wood in the underground river.

Sometimes even the wood that was brought up with great difficulty is completely unusable because of being soaked in water for too long. It seems that such useless efforts are common.

This is what is called getting twice the result with half the effort.

Therefore, after more than a month, Ma Hui and others managed to build the moat bridge with great difficulty, so that they could lead directly to Xilong City.

But this bridge is simpler and narrower than the original one, and it cannot accommodate more people to pass at the same time. Once it exceeds its load, there is even a risk of collapse.

It is obviously not enough to rely on this bridge as a means of transporting troops. If a large number of troops really want to pass through, it will take a lot of time.

So in desperation, Ma Hui couldn't just leave like this. He had to send soldiers to search for new forests far away, and cut down a large number of trees to build troop transport ships.

The amount of this project is not small, even heavier than the construction of the moat bridge, so that he and the half a million elite soldiers have been dragged in Xilong City.

Ketan City knew that Ma Hui had led his troops away, but Zheng Yuanyun didn't know!

Zheng Yuanyun also sent some soldiers back to investigate to see what was going on behind him, but Zhang Hualin stayed behind.

If one came, he would kill one, if two came, he would kill a pair, which completely broke Zheng Yuanyun's eyeliner.

Although Zheng Yuanyun was also deeply puzzled by the fact that there was no news from the rear, but at that time he was too deep, and it was impossible to just retreat and give up the city he had already laid down, so he could only rush to attack. On the one hand, more people will be sent back to inquire about the news.

However, he can send someone, so why not Chen Ze?

There was no blockade in Ketan City, and his people could come in and out as they wanted, and Chen Ze also sent more people to intercept Zheng Yuanyun's investigation.

This situation has continued until today, a month later.